


What We Did in the Dark

by Tallulah



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Closeted Character, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 15:06:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17226272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallulah/pseuds/Tallulah
Summary: It probably wouldn't have started if they were working on a normal case.





	What We Did in the Dark

It probably wouldn’t have started if they were working on a normal case. No, it definitely wouldn’t. Ide’s never thought anything of workplace affairs, even when it’s all above-board, a man and a woman at the same rank and they end up getting married. Unprofessional, he always thought, at the back of his mind. And risky. Even if you were interested in the kind of affair that can be made public – and he knows full well that he isn’t, even if he keeps that fact to himself – it’s messy. It risks fallout and stress in a context that’s already got more than enough of it.

When you work on a normal case, you have about, say, thirty or forty colleagues you interact with on a daily or weekly basis. 

Normal cases typically either get resolved – even if it never comes to trial, at least you find who you’re looking for – or they go completely cold and you can put them out of your mind.

The Kira case has a grand total of six people working on it, a daily list of the victims published in every national newspaper, and it’s been three years since it began with no sign of that changing. You find yourself in a bubble. You stop meeting up with the few friends you have because you’re working every hour you’re awake and when you do see them you can’t tell them a thing about what you’re doing with your time. Not to mention that as time passes, more and more people think you shouldn’t be doing it anyway, more and more people tell you quite willingly to your face that Kira’s the best thing that’s ever happened to the world. Given that, is it surprising that _what other people might think_ becomes less of a concern?

He and Raito had travelled to another town to follow up a potential lead. The lead came to nothing. All the leads came to nothing, and in two years they’ll all find out why that is, but right now, they’ve taken a twin room in a business hotel – the number of times Ide has fallen asleep in Raito’s living room, it seemed ridiculous to waste money on two rooms, particularly when you never know when someone might decide you shouldn’t get paid for hunting Kira. Ide wasn’t particularly relishing the trip – he finds one-on-one socialising awkward unless it’s someone like Aizawa who knows him well and is fine with comfortable silences, or someone like Matsuda who fills every silence with chatter. Raito is polished, confident, always seems to know the right bit of small talk to come out with and would notice your failure to do the same (even if he were far too polite ever to comment on it). Not to mention Raito is Ide’s boss’s son and yet also the head of their tiny organisation, and god knows Ide doesn’t want to find himself playing the patronising older colleague, the surrogate father. 

But Raito, of course, knows exactly how to manage the situation. He keeps the talk professional, they focus on the lead, on the case. That evening, when they’re back at the hotel, Raito says _let’s have a drink, I think we deserve it._ Raito doesn’t drink much. Ide assumes, at the time, that that’s what it is, that he isn’t used to it. Raito talks about how it’s nice to have a night away from home. The bar is overheated and Ide doesn’t go out drinking much these days either, so maybe his tolerance isn’t as good as he remembered. Somehow, in some way, Raito is explaining how Misa doesn’t hold his interest. This isn’t the kind of conversation Ide would ever have initiated and three years ago it’s not the kind of conversation he would have encouraged but three years ago he wasn’t spending literally every waking moment in this person’s company, in this person’s apartment. And maybe the drink means he gives the strong impression that he can identify with Raito’s lack of interest in this respect. 

Or maybe it didn’t happen like that at all. A lot of conversations with Raito are going to seem different when you look back at them.

He does remember that it was him who said, _Perhaps we should continue this discussion upstairs._ Leaving Raito to decide whether that meant, _I’m not comfortable talking about this stuff in public_ , or something else.

It was Raito who kissed him as soon as the bedroom door closed behind them.

They don’t talk again until afterwards, when they’re lying on one of the beds in the dark and Raito says, _Are you going to tell anyone about this?_

_Of course I’m not,_ he says, perhaps more angrily than he meant to. _I don’t tell people about this kind of thing. And… your father would… probably kill me._ He hadn’t thought about the Chief up until now. He doesn’t like the idea of having done something to hide from him, something he should be ashamed of. He was never ashamed, before, just cautious, just aware that it’s best to keep this kind of thing to yourself. Raito smiles, rolls onto his back and a line of streetlight falls across him. _He’d probably kill me too. I think he’d see us as equally to blame. Don’t worry._

And later, when Ide’s falling asleep: _You understand, don’t you, it’s just… something that happens sometimes. I love Misa, she’s a wonderful person. But you understand. Sometimes…_

Ide wouldn’t have described Misa as wonderful, but he manages to mumble, _I understand. Stop overthinking it._

It happens again. Of course it happens again, because nothing changes for another two years. Misa travelling for work or out with a friend. Raito glancing over with a particular look, saying, _Maybe…_ Ide wonders whether he should be shutting it down, whether this is harmful. He means harmful for Raito. He thinks that he himself isn’t acting any different, isn’t feeling any different, isn’t unable to concentrate on work or anything. He’d always figured that if you did start having an affair with a colleague it would feel like some kind of… exciting secret, that part of it would be enjoying bringing desire into the workplace. Or something. But this almost feels inevitable, as if his entire life has become the Kira case and of course that would include his sex life as well. He sections the incidents off in his mind, enjoys them at the time, tries not to think about them at any other time. Raito doesn’t seem concerned, so why should he?

When the Kira case is over, he spends a very long time trying not to think about these events. After all, he can hardly tell any of them _we were sleeping together the entire time._ And if he is… perturbed by having had sex with one of the world’s most prolific mass murderers (which he can’t tell if he is or not. He thinks about it and he can’t tell if he’s feeling anything or if he’s feeling that he _should_ be)… if he is…

He’d assumed the entire time that Raito was like him in this respect: aware of his own desires, but unwilling to deal with the hassle of being open about them. He wonders, sometimes, whether it was something else, whether the man got a thrill out of sleeping with one of the people trying to hunt him down. Or just found it so goddamn funny that Ide never knew who he really was. There’s always that. Or perhaps it didn’t mean anything. Perhaps it was just another part of day-to-day life, just another part of the act. When Ide thinks back on it, they’re nearly always together in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 12daysChristmas on LiveJournal, prompt "Five uncertain choices". Prompted by still_lycoris.


End file.
